Statesman: Mike Crapo’s no Larry Craig

The editorial page of the most widely read newspaper in Idaho on Tuesday urged readers to give Sen. Mike Crapo a second chance, several days after the GOP senator was busted for driving under the influence.

“It would be unfair to judge Crapo, or anybody else, on one mistake,” read a Christmas Day editorial in the Boise-based Idaho Statesman, which says it reaches nearly 125,000 readers a day. “But it is totally fair to evaluate him according to where he goes from here and what he does to turn this matter from a negative to a positive.”

Text Size

-

+

reset

Crapo, a conservative politician and Mormon, was arrested Sunday for driving under the influence of alcohol in Alexandria, Va., and is slated for a Jan. 4 court date. He had previously said that as a Mormon he abstains from alcohol.

The editorial compared Crapo favorably to another Idaho politician — former GOP Sen. Larry Craig — who experienced a major scandal following an incident in 2007 in which he allegedly solicited sex in an airport bathroom.

“Crapo’s ‘mistake’ was not on the same level as Craig’s ‘mistake’at a Minneapolis airport bathroom in 2007,” the Statesman said. “It was worse. Crapo could have killed himself, or somebody else — which is a lot more serious than toe-tapping in a restroom stall.

“But there is a difference in how they handled their mistakes,” the editorial continued. “Craig blamed everybody but himself; Crapo knows the DUI arrest was nobody’s fault but his own, and took responsibility for his actions.”

The editorial board, which noted that “[some] of us here have known Crapo since his days as an up-and-coming state senator from Idaho Falls in the 1980s,” argued that “one mistake does not erase an otherwise honorable career” and said that Crapo should use the situation to send a message about drunken driving.

“He could hire a lawyer who would ask for leniency based on his record as a senator and a ‘good Mormon,’” the editorial said. “We’d be more impressed if he did not, and instead used his standing as an example of the personal costs associated with such a mistake and to speak up about the dangers of drinking and driving.”